Character count messages are announced by screen readers even when the count is below a set threshold #2488
Description
Description of the issue
The character count has a 'threshold' feature which allows you to hide the remaining count unless the count reaches a set percentage of the total limit of characters or words.
However, some screen readers announce the count message even when it is hidden.
Steps to reproduce the issue
- Go to https://govuk-frontend-review.herokuapp.com/components/character-count/with-threshold/preview
- Enter a single character in the box – the count message should only appear after 7 characters.
Actual vs expected behaviour
Expected behaviour: The count message should not be announced, as it is not visible.
Actual behaviour: The count message is announced in:
- JAWS 2021.2103.174 / Chrome 96
- JAWS 2021.2103.174 / IE 11
- NVDA 2021.2 / Chrome 96
It seems to be announced very rarely in VoiceOver / Safari 15.2 (macOS Big Sur).
Firefox behaves as expected with both NVDA and JAWS.
There is also something very odd going on in VoiceOver / Safari (iOS 15.2) where all of the information about the field is announced on every key press. This needs further testing – it might just be an issue with the way I was testing it, or it could be a bug in WebKit that may or may not be related to what we're doing with the character count…
Environment (where applicable)
- Operating system: As above
- Browser: As above
- Browser version: As above
- GOV.UK Frontend Version: v4.0.0